


The One Where Neji Has A Cold

by AwayLaughing



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Domestic Fluff, M/M, No Plot/Plotless, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:15:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27565132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AwayLaughing/pseuds/AwayLaughing
Summary: There are few things worse than a sick boyfriend, but a sick boyfriend named Hyuuga Neji is one of them. Still, Shikamaru has the skills to handle this cold, even if his patient is ornery and likely to self sabotage.
Relationships: Hyuuga Neji/Nara Shikamaru
Comments: 16
Kudos: 73





	The One Where Neji Has A Cold

**Author's Note:**

> When I say this is canon divergent I mean _we really diverged here folks_ , not just the fact Neji's alive. So go forth and be not confused.
> 
> Anyway, this is pure fucking WAFF, have at it.

Shikamaru knew something was wrong when he walked into the house. Something just felt off, Neji’s chakra waved out and prickled uneasily through the space. Confused – Neji had two days off, and hadn’t been injured in his last mission – Shikamaru toed off his shoes and headed for the bedroom.

Immediately he could tell it wasn’t good – it was just past 13:30, and Neji was in bed. Not only in bed, he didn’t move a muscle when Shikamaru walked into the room. Shikamaru couldn’t remember the time Neji had failed to respond to someone entering a room, short of being pretty much dead.

“Neji?” he said, “can you hear me?”

Neji shifted, so he wasn't in a coma which was good. Shikamaru reached down to gently shake him, and came to a stop. Course correcting, he brought the back of his hand up to Neji’s forehead.

After a solid thirty seconds he pulled away and said, “oh motherfucker.”

* * *

Shikamaru didn’t mind sick people. Obviously – it was his stock and trade. Neji was an exception, both because Shikamaru loved him and hated to see him suffer, and also because Neji was a goddamn _awful patient._

“I’m fine,” he said, finally having woken up to Shikamaru cursing, and blinking up at him. A few more painful than they should have been questions later, and Shikamaru was at least pretty certain Neji hadn’t caught anything exotic, or more dire than a particularly bad cold.

“Yes, that’s why you’re running a fever,” Shikamaru said, eyeing his thermometer.

“Barely. It’s 37.9°C,” Neji said from under his tissue paper. His nose was already red from the attempt to control the sniffling. Shikamaru steadfastly did not review the list of known complicating factors that could arise when dojutsu bearers had a sinus infection.

“Rest assured there is no such thing is ‘barely’ a fever. It’s an is or isn’t thing,” he said.

Neji scoffed, and Shikamaru had to smile, already knowing that at least on some level Neji was thinking there was no absolute he’d ever met he hadn’t tried to punch into submission.

“I’m fine,” was all he said though – and the fact he was repeating himself so much told Shikamaru more than anything he was uncomfortable.

“I’m the medic, I get to say when you’re fine actually. I sign a paper to confirm it and everything.”

Neji shot him a glare that was only slightly undermined by his red nose, and utterly by the fact Shikamaru hadn’t remotely feared him in 12 years.

“I want a new nurse,” he muttered.

“Hm,” Shikamaru tapped his chin. “I’ll see what I can do. I think mom had a few slow days.”

“I love your mother,” Neji said.

“I know,” Shikamaru said, bending to kiss Neji’s head knowing it would annoy the shit out of him. “And all I want is to take care of you, as best I can. If it means ceding your care to her, I will.”

Neji was quiet for a moment, eyes a little unfocused, and then he sighed, drained his water, and collapsed back onto the pillows.

“I am fine,” he said, mouth purse.

“Well thank you for humouring me,” Shikamaru said.

“You’re a dick,” Neji added. Shikamaru snickered, taking his cup.

“I love you too.”

* * *

Shikamaru did actually call his mother into duty, mostly so he could run down to the hospital and pick up some supplies. They were n’t stocked for colds – neither got sick very often, and when they did, it was usually himself picking up some hell-virus from his ER rotations. Since Neji was the world’s least amazing cook, his mother usually dealt with sick people food as a result.

As it was, when he got home, divested of his last two shifts, he arrived armed with ginger, dried shiitake and yuzu-cha. Unsurprisingly, his mother had brought something over and he could smell her signature vegetable nabe almost before he stepped through the door.

“Thanks kaasan,” he called from the genkan.

His mother appeared a moment later, “well don’t wake him!” she said, reaching over to take his bag so he had an easier time shrugging off his outerwear. He was damp from an unexpected, but hardly surprising, rain-shower – which immediately set her off. “Oh dear – go change! It won’t do for you both to get sick.”

“I _know_ you know being rained on doesn’t actually make you ill,” he said, even as he was already pulling off his sweater.

“Being damp is unpleasant and can heighten stress, which does make you more susceptible,” she shot back from the living room. “Change and come eat, and then you can bully Neji-kun into eating having a bowl.”

“I thought I brought you here to bully,” Shikamaru said, deciding his pants weren’t wet enough to be bothersome, and simply lobbing his sweater down the hall to be picked up on his way to the bedroom. His mother gave him a Look when he entered – but mercifully, had not gotten to the point of telling him to tidy up his own house. Yet.

“He’ll appreciate it more from you,” she said with blandness of a woman who knew her lies were plastic-wrap transparent.

“You just know he likes you and aren’t willing to risk it,” he grouched, sliding into a spot at the table as she pushed a heavy looking bowl at him, settling across from him with just a tea cup. “You’re not eating?”

“Never give up the position of being the favourite,” she told him. “I have dinner with Megumi-san later, we’re scoping out some competition,” she said. “Unless you need me to stay?”

“Nah, we’re fine,” Shikamaru said. “Thanks kaasan. The nabe’s good.”

“Well you gave me enough practice back in the day,” she said. “I swear you and Ino and Chōji managed to trade every illness under the sun between yourselves.”

“Lies, I never had _one_ hemorrhagic fever,” Shikamaru said.

“Maybe my nabe nipped it in the bud,” his mother said with a grin.

“Forget the Nara medicines, Kahera family nabe is where it’s at,” he said, smiling back. “He wake up at all?”

“Out like a bear in January,” she said. “I cleaned your shower.”

The addition took Shikamaru a moment to process, busy as he was wrangling enoki. “What why?” he asked.

“Just seemed like it couldn’t go to waste,” she said. “And I folded the laundry in the dryer.”

“Kaasan-”

“Oh don’t – you take care of Neji, I’ll take care of you.”

“Kaasan,” he said again, this time unable to hide his smile, try as he did.

“Ah, my tender Nara boys,” she said, sighing slightly. “I know – you can’t take much embarrassment. It’s okay. I love you too.”

Shikamaru took a few sips of his broth, before he said, “I love you too, kaasan.”

* * *

Neji slept all night after Shikamaru woke him up for nabe, more water and the modern joy known as drugs. Neji had complained about the last one, always willing to suffer to make a point, but Shikamaru had the power of not having a cold on his side, which meant for once, he was the more stubborn of the two of them. His mother had left plenty of food, but still he decided to use his down time to create extra stock he could freeze. It made for a quiet, good smelling morning until he heard Neji approach. There was a pause, and then Neji finally spoke his first words in nearly thirteen hours.

“Don’t you have work?”

“Nope,” Shikamaru took a sip of the broth. “Called in.”

“Shikamaru you were almost done your yearly-”

“Hush,” Shikamaru cut him off, turning to face him. Neji had a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. Which, if Shikamaru wasn’t already feeling pretty well disposed towards him, would have definitely softened any ire. “I only have 16 hours left, it’s easy as sin to pick up ER rotations. Besides. What if I gave your cold to some kid with cancer? Irresponsible.”

“You don’t have any meaningful interactions with the pediatric oncology unit,” Neji said, addressing a spot on the floor. Then, “thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Shikamaru said because he was gracious like that. “Now if you really loved me, you’d go sit down.”

Neji pulled a face, but did turn around and shuffle out of the kitchen. Shikamaru cocked a head, and heard him collapse onto the kotatsu.

“Need me to turn that on?” he asked, dumping his chopped dried and chopped shiitake into his kelpy boiling water. His question was followed a decidedly mulish pause.

“Yes,” Neji pouted up at him – and probably would have argued until he suffocated about that descriptor had Shikamaru dared mention it. “Only because you have fire jutsu.”

“Oh yes me, master of the elements,” Shikamaru said, even while summoning a small flame. Not for the first time, he considered the transition to electric options – better for not burning the house down. But then, truly, what _would_ he use his fire jutsu for.

N eji settled in with the barest amount of grumbling, and Shikamaru prepared himself for a boring day. With any cold bad enough to knock you on your ass, the issue was almost invariably general discomfort and foggy brain. The cure was mostly vitamins and napping – Neji was notoriously horrible at sleep hygiene but Shikamaru had diphenhydramine for that, in this case.

So he used the day to finish his mom’s cleaning up, doing a load of laundry and even folding it and putting it away.  That didn’t take as long as his habit of putting it off would suggest, so he was left with studying. He settled at the kotatsu, armed with books he could weaponize through sheer weight, and enough paper to intimidate a forest, and got to work.

H e was done by dinner, and Neji was still out like a nasally congested log. Shikamaru risked poking him awake for more liquids and Nabe 2.0, and then herded him to bed. Neji had apparently decided stoically handling Shikamaru’s  care-taking was the only way forward, because he didn’t complain much. Or, that’s what Shikamaru decided after making him retake his temperature and soothing any paranoia about returning, atypical fevers.

“Night,” Neji muttered from somewhere under the blankets. “When d’you go back to work?”

“Took the whole week off,” Shikamaru said.

“I’m not going to be sick all week,” Neji said, sounding disgusted with the idea he’d be victim of a long term virus. Shikamaru snorted.

“Sure, but if it’s a two day bug and you get over it and I get it, won’t we be happy I don’t need to go ask for more time off?” he said. As if he hadn’t been washing his hands basically every half hours, and wasn’t going to go outside and sanitize everything Neji had touched today.

“You’re not going to get sick,” Neji said.

“You’ll argue about anything, won’t you?” Shikamaru asked. There was a prolonged silence that told him Neji had spotted the trap.

“You’re an ass,” Neji said. “I’m going to sleep so I don’t have to deal with you.”

“See now I know you’re sick because you’ve never met a fight you wouldn’t pick in your life,” Shikamaru said, pushing off the door.

“Haha,” was the rather scratchy response.

“Sleep tight~” Shikamaru sang, and closed the door before Neji could try and get the last word in.

* * *

Neji’s cold was not the fabled two day affair, but he was better on the third, getting up before noon and managing to feed himself. Shikamaru still spent his nights on the couch though, both to you know, not to be cuddled up to the plague barer, but mostly so he didn’t disturb Neji. He was even considering trying to get his final two shifts in two days, if he didn’t show any symptoms. The paranoid  medic voice that always assumed everything was more nefarious than it actually was, and whom he didn’t listen to, ever, feared Neji was going to drop dead of something he’d failed to notice did not factor into it.

He still nearly died of a heart attack when, a t the end of his week off , Neji woke him up in the middle of the night, so bad he almost fell off the couch .

“What’s wrong?” he asked, blinking the darkness. Neji didn’t feel distressed – nor sound it, when he spoke.

“You’re just being stubborn – I stopped sniffling almost entirely a day ago. I think it’s safe to come back to bed.”

“I just didn’t want to interrupt your sleep,” Shikamaru said.

“You sleep like the dead, Shikamaru,” Neji said, bodily hauling him to his feet. “And your back will thank me when you don’t have horrible muscle problems in twenty years.”

“Yes, because it’s the couch that will surely be the source of all my bodily ailments if I make it to forty,” he said. Even in the dark, he could feel the look Neji sent him, brows arched imperiously as he looked down his nose.

“It won’t be because I am the reasonable one,” he said, making Shikamaru bark out a laugh.

“Oh yeah, Hyūga Neji, The Reasonable One. Your famous for it.”

“So glad you’ve finally realized,” Neji said, pushing him towards the bed, which Shikamaru gladly flopped onto.

It was, admittedly, way better than the couch, though the couch wasn’t bad.

“Bossy,” he said, sliding under the covers and trying not to hug his pillow with too much adoration.

“Good thing I’m reasonable then, we’ll never go wrong.”

“Shut up and go to sleep before you relapse,” Shikamaru said, rather than be baited further.

“The words of a man who knows I’m right.”

“I loved you more when you were too sick to fight back,” Shikamaru told him, and Neji responded by looping an arm around him and pulling him closer.

“Liar,” he said into Shikamaru’s ear.

“You could still be contagious you know,” Shikamaru said, totally not reacting to the air over his neck because it was 2AM and Neji was, despite his clear voice and renewed ability to argue, still sort of in recovery.

“Go to sleep, Shikamaru,” Neji said.

“’m trying,” Shikamaru said into his pillow. Neji didn’t laugh, but the way he buried his nose into Shikamaru’s shoulder more or less mimicked it. “Night, Neji.”

“Good night, Shikamaru. And thank you.”

“No problem,” he muttered, sleep oh so tantalizingly close. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hey ShikaNeji readers! It's been ages and I wrote this actually months ago and kept forgetting to post it. Anyway, this is a silly little thing I wrote because I was in a terrible mood and wanted to write cute stuff to combat it. This is set in an AU I've been threatening to write for _years_ , and I've finally bit the bullet and started to outline stuff. So here's a little...sneak peak, I guess, which gives One Thing away but not anything else.
> 
> Also Shikamaru loves his mom always.


End file.
